Warhol’s Riot to Calder’s Fish Fuel $500 Million Auction

A 1952 'Untitled' painting by Mark Rothko is estimated at about $60 million by Christie's. The work is one of the star lots of the auctioneer's evening sale of postwar and contemporary art on May 13. Source: Christie's via Bloomberg

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Major works by Francis Bacon, Andy
Warhol and Mark Rothko are set to fuel Christie’s auction of
postwar and contemporary art in New York next month with a
target of $500 million.

The 72-lot evening sale on May 13 has at least 10 works
estimated at $20 million or more, according to the privately
held auction house. It will also feature 14 pieces from the
estate of major Chicago art collectors. Christie’s sale last May
tallied a then-record $495 million.

The sale is part of the semi-annual auctions in New York,
considered important barometers of the art market’s health.
Global annual sales of postwar and contemporary art increased by
11 percent in 2013, with a highest-ever auction tally of 4.9
billion euros ($6.8 billion), according to a report published
last month by the European Fine Art Foundation. New York
confirmed its position as the center for the biggest auction and
gallery transactions, according to Clare McAndrew, a cultural
economist who compiled the report.

Following Christie’s sale of Bacon’s “Three Studies of
Lucian Freud” for a record $142.4 million in November, the
auction house procured another triptych. The 1984 depiction of
the artist’s confidant, “Three Studies for a Portrait of John
Edwards,” is expected to sell for about $80 million, the
highest estimate of the sale.

Rothko’s Canvas

The second-priciest work is Rothko’s 8 1/2-foot-tall 1952
canvas layered with purple and orange hues. The work is expected
to bring $40 million to $60 million.

“It’s one of the few canvases of this kind still in
private hands that is coming to auction for the first time,”
David Anfam, the author of “Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas,
Catalogue Raisonne,” said in an e-mail. “It’s a classic year
for Rothko and the work is indelibly vivid, muscular yet
refined.”

Warhol’s silkscreen painting depicting the 1963 race riot
in Birmingham, Alabama, could sell for about $50 million. The
almost square canvas, showing the same image four times (on
white, blue and red backgrounds), had once belonged to artist
Robert Mapplethorpe. It last appeared at auction in 1992,
selling for $627,000.

The Warhol painting is among 34 guaranteed lots in the
sale, which means the sellers receive an undisclosed guaranteed
minimum price regardless of whether the work sells or not.
Christie’s is financing the guarantees for 27 of these lots and
outsourcing the risk to third parties for seven lots, the
auction house said.

Bergman Collection

The evening auction will begin with 14 lots from the estate
of Edwin and Lindy Bergman, Chicago-based collectors and art
patrons known for their holdings of Surrealist art and Joseph
Cornell. The group, including seven Cornell works, Alexander
Calder’s 1957 mobile and Pablo Picasso’s portrait of his lover
Dora Maar, is expected to bring as much as $40 million.

Other pieces from the Bergman estate will be sold in future
auctions, Christie’s said.

“They began collecting in the mid-1950s with German
Expressionism,” Laura Paulson, Christie’s chairman and
international director of postwar and contemporary art, said in
an interview. “Once they started, they never stopped. They had
relationships with artists and they were incredibly generous.”

Wire Whiskers

Calder’s 7 1/2-foot-long mobile “Poisson volant (Flying
Fish)” is estimated at $9 million to $12 million, Christie’s
said. The Bergmans bought the mobile, which depicts the
silhouette of a fish with wire whiskers, in 1965. While they
were its sole owners for almost 50 years, the work has been in
at least a dozen museum shows, including those in Switzerland,
Finland, Holland and France. Christie’s put the mobile on
display in Hong Kong, hoping it would appeal to Chinese
collectors.

“We’ve had strong Asian interest in Calder’s works,”
Paulson said. “Fish is a symbol of good health and good
fortune, of prosperity in China.”

The couple had donated dozens of Cornell works to the Art
Institute of Chicago, which named a gallery after them.

Cornell (1903-1973) is known for assembling found objects
and images from art history and popular culture into surprising
compositions in small, hand-made boxes.

The Bergmans’ personal relationship with Cornell, whom they
met in 1959, resulted in the acquisition of some of the artist’s
most iconic pieces.

Bogart, Bacall

Cornell’s “Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren
Bacall),” estimated at $4 million to $6 million, could set a
new auction record for the self-taught American artist. The
current record of $4.8 million was set at Christie’s last May.

The 1946 jewel-like box, with images of Bacall on blue
background, was inspired by “To Have and Have Not,” a film
starring Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

Cornell’s collector base is diverse, attracting those
interested in Old Masters, 20th century art and American art,
Paulson said.

Christie’s auction and the exhibition, “Joseph Cornell:
Wanderlust,” opening at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in
2015, may help boost the artist’s prices.

“Cornell’s work is very much undervalued because it is yet
to be fully understood,” Paulson said. “I think we are going
to see the market change.”